Discussion
Awhile back on Bluesky there was discourse when someone made the (verifiably false) claim "cyberpunk" was coined before "punk" was redefined from "criminal"/"delinquent" to "cool"/"artistic".
I am still thinking about how this claim, if true, would change the word "Solarpunk". What does it mean to be a solar-powered criminal. Not an ecoterrorist but a small-time hood. Do you steal batteries from Flock cameras to power mesh networking? Layer solar panels atop other solar panels to steal sunight?
@olives switch to smartgrid means grow operations show up immediately and obviously to the police, so growers start setting up dummy bitcoin mining operations in the front room for when the cops show up. this also allows them to plausibly explain why they're declaring so much revenue in bitcoin on their taxes
@mcc more generally, there’s a nearby future where the power grid is another dimension of an authoritarian surveillance state and existing outside of that is either explicitly or effectively illegal.
@mcc coils of wire under power lines to make a free air core transformer
Lol, people who think the internet is the world, and that nothing documentable happened before 1994.
YES! I know (knew...?) criminal punks! With a loose definition of criminal, to mean mostly what (before the internet, lol) would be called more "nuisance" and petty, than "crime".
Punks swiping power with long cords, or cut wires. Stealing water in containers. Late-night driving around to toss household trash into commercial dumpsters. Dumpster diving for food.
Hoboes did all this a century ago; and it we exit western 21/20th C middle class, a huge portion of the world's citizens are or were crustcore. Being "generous" with the definition of crustcore.
@mcc I don’t think it matters much when it was coined (1980, published in 1983) because Bruce Bethke, who created the word, wrote that he intended “punk” in the older sense of the word.
I imagine that a Solarpunk lowlife would be the sort of person who stole solar power to mine cryptocurrency without concern what harm happened when the power was not available to those it was stolen from.
@mcc I do like the idea of harvesting stuff like flock cameras for parts to do good
@mcc getting a job working for the solarcrime division of the FBI
@mcc My #balkonsolar saves my neighbors electricity bills if it produces more than I consume. That's not criminal, but breaking societal norms, and just like punk it is more about breaking the unwritten rules than breaking the written ones.
@mcc something - something-original-Battle-Angel-Alita-not-the-shit-hollywood-movie
@mcc using a magnifying glass to burn endangered species of insects.
@mcc while doing research for other reasons** i stumbled upon the idea of using submersible variable buoyancy gliding drones; these are already used by scientists for oceanographic research but could also probably be used for smuggling
if this became a widespread practice though, the ocean would get weirder and probably not in an environmentally-friendly way
(**strait of hormuz related. however there is no evidence any such systems are used for that)
Y'all're too idealistic, I go "can we imagine solarpunk that isn't about making the world better but is just about petty criminals in a solarpunk setting, in order to make a fun story" and most of y'all's replies are "what if we did a crime… to make the the world better?". Like legitimately this says something positive about you as people but lol
@mcc I see this as a real issue even in current world about ‘stealing’ sunlight.
I’ve looked at viability of placing solar panels on towers. Good for emergencies, but can also help electric car charging without having to draw more power.
BUT that assumes a neighbouring lot isn’t sold and a huge tower is built, casting shade on your panels.
@mcc backalley photosynthesis bodymods
Technically not a crime under the international law of finds, but would definitely tick off the USA...
Build an array of solar-powered mass accelerators beaming moon dust at the Earth–Sun L1 Lagrange point to end global warming as a cover for stealing a rare Warhol from an actual art museum hidden on the Apollo 12 lander leg.
@mcc you are a star, but also a young jerk
you notice another old star around and you ain't gonna take no guff from no old codger
so you spin up real fast and emit a relativistic jet and cook the old asshole's whole planetary system! Oh you liked gardening old man? You were growing some sophonts in your habitable zone? fuck you they ain't growing no more haaaa haaa
hmm where'd the other jet go anyway. probably nowhere important
Okay so this is neither what I asked for nor what I got but a secret third thing, but it is a very good video https://social.treehouse.systems/@whitequark/117508591107082639
@mcc most of us are increasingly in a world where the crimes that make the world worse are no longer crimes, while the things that make the world better are
@mcc I syill want ecoterrorist...
@mcc I've been talking some with @MLE_online about setting up meshcore/meshtastic repeater nodes mounted on flock poles and pulling power from their solar cells.
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@mcc i can see an off-the-way-too-smartgrid-for-opsec-reasons angle